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i 1 [ 1 " ] I ! ! ; ; [ , ] t i SLEEPING SICKNESS SCOURGE Eight Million Dollar Loss Among Horses and Mules in 1937-38. Vaccine Perfected and Thoroughly Tested— U. S. Bureau of Animal Husbandry Reports on Disease. Losses from sleeping sickness among horses "and mules cost farmers more than eight million dollars during 1937 and 1938, and an incalculable amount more in value of time lost from work by animals that were sick but recovered. Payments to veterinarians also ran into large sums. Farmers need not lose any animals from the disease hereafter. A vaccine has been perfected and thoroughly tested, which affords safety at slight cost. On this point the Horse and Mule Association of America says: "Vaccinating your horses and mules with chick embryo vaccine will give you virtually complete protection against sleeping sickness for at least six months. If the disease occurred in or near your community lost year, have your horses vaccinated as soon as the first mosquitoes or biting flies appear. Two injections are necessary, from seven to ten days apart." The Bureau of Animal Husbandry, TJ. S. Dept. of Agriculture, says in a recent re- MANY UNVACCINATED. "In Minnesota in an area where there were 626,318 unyaccinated horses and mules, 22,929 or 36.6 per thousand developed the disease. In the same area, 41,596 horses and mules received chick embryo vaccine either before or during the epizootic. Onlv 189 developed the disease, or 4.5 out of each thousand — less than one-half of one per cent. The few which do take the disease after vaccination, usually recover. "There is no need for vaccinating horses that are in areas where the disease has not appeared, until and unless it does appear there, for experience last year showed that if animals were vaccinated twice, at seven- day intervals, as soon as the disease appeared within fifteen or twenty miles, they were protected, and losses were virtually nil. "The vaccine, for the two injections, costs your veterinarian a little less than .26 per animal. His charge to you will depend on how many you have to vaccinate, the dis- tance he has to drive, and your help in confining animals so work can be done without loss of time. He will be reasonable if you coooperate. "If the disease has been near you, have your animals vaccinated with reliable chick embryo vaccine as soon as mosquitoes and biting flies appear and you will escape losses." A thirty-two-page booklet, containing Schoenings full address and questions and answers on every phase of the disease, may be obtained for a three-cent stamp sent td- The Horse and Mule Association of America, 407 S. Dearborn Street, Chicago, 111.
